Billy Graham has died at age 99 (PW)

Rev. Billy Graham, the world’s best known contemporary evangelist, and one of the nation’s most admired men for half a century, as well as the author and subject of hundreds of books over half a century, died Wednesday at age 99.

Graham’s sole motivation was to preach the gospel and he led the way using every form of media to do so—from print to film to video to Internet outreach. His 1997 bestselling autobiography, Just as I Am was reissued in 2007, and was one of five of his bestsellers among his 33 titles.

Graham’s life in publishing began as his career did, in the 1940s when he became the nations’ first field representative for Youth for Christ, an evangelical network aimed at youth trying to find a footing in faith in the postwar world. He wrote his first book, Calling Youth to Christ in 1947.

By 1957, he was a faith-and-media sensation. His New York crusade that year filled Madison Square Garden for 16 weeks, was broadcast by ABC News and set the pattern for his outreach efforts. As he travelled the globe in his international crusades, his books—always connecting the dangers of the world with his certainty that salvation in Christ was the only answer—reached broadly into American homes. Read more